


When Opportunity Knocks

by non_sequential



Category: Doctor Who, White Collar
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-08
Updated: 2011-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_sequential/pseuds/non_sequential
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a shame that some humans insisted on meddling in things they weren’t supposed to even know about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Opportunity Knocks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ships_Harry](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ships_Harry).
  * Inspired by [Icon](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2478) by Copperbadge. 
  * Inspired by [Icon](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2478) by Copperbadge. 



One of the things he loved most about humans was the noise. Most of them never learned to keep their thoughts quiet, and their entire planet was a great big ball of exuberant psychic chatter.

Gallifrey had always maintained a dignified silence. The only stray thoughts came from children, and were quickly hushed by embarrassed parents. In the early days he’d revelled in the lack of self-consciousness of Earth. More recently he’d discovered that although Gallifrey had been silent, that silence had a quality, a _presence_ that was now absent from the universe. He had come to be grateful for the noise covering the void in his head.

It was just a shame that some humans insisted on meddling in things they weren’t supposed to even know about. The Sisthian acceleration drive had been safe enough in its little museum, one curiosity among many, but its theft by a cutting edge transport design company with a mysterious owner made it dangerous. Honestly, sometimes they were like puppies that just couldn’t resist the urge to chew on someone’s slippers.

 _’I have every right to be here, don’t worry about me,’_ he thought as loudly as he could. He had the psychic paper to get him anywhere he needed to go, but it was always better if he could manage without. The noise in the office as he wandered around was about what he’d expect – boredom, stress, a soupcon of lust, and a healthy dash of jealousy.

Now he just needed to find someone who looked helpful- ah! “Excuse me!”

The man looked up. He was a bit overweight, with thinning hair, and the faint off-key mental jangle that meant relationship troubles. A plastic plaque on the wall of his cubicle said his name was Vernon. “Yes?”

 _’The faster you answer my question, the faster I’ll go away.’_ “Vernon, is it? I was just wondering who I should talk to about the fancy new acceleration project?” He let his voice trail off questioningly and gave the poor chap an encouraging smile.

Vernon looked for a moment like he was going to ask awkward questions, but then must have decided he couldn’t be bothered. He liked it when people decided that questioning him was going to be more trouble than it was worth. It always went so much easier for all concerned. He waved his hand vaguely behind him and to the left. “You wanna talk to Nick.”

The Doctor jumped back from Vernon’s desk, with a broad smile. “Nick. Lovely, thanks!” Nick, who was this way. Somewhere. Oh well, couldn’t be far. It wasn’t a big building. Goodness, someone was fancying someone else over there _hard_.

 _’Just helping out while Sheldon is at lunch, because I’m a friendly, helpful kinda guy. La la la.’_ Wait, that wasn’t him. Iiiinteresting. He looked around for a moment. There were several empty desks, but three people were still there. One lady with lovely, shiny brown hair, and two men. Both quite good looking as these things went. The taller one had very trendy looking glasses and was a bit gawky. The other was broader through the shoulders, had a very _concentratedly_ cheerful smile, and a truly atrocious tie.

“Hello!” He broke out his own cheerful smile, “I’m looking for Nick!”

The Tie stood. “That would be me.” His smile got _even more_ cheerful, and he stuck out his hand. “Nick Halden. How can I help?”

“Vernon said you were the man to speak to about the acceleration project.” He shook Nick’s hand and took the opportunity to cop a quick feel of his brain. It was shiny and bright and running at a thousand thoughts a minute behind a soothing façade of _’totally trustworthy, and a generally nice guy’_.

“Well, Sheldon is the expert, but he’s at lunch at the moment. You can wait for him in the meeting room, if you like.” Nick gestured at a glass walled, fishbowl type room part way along the wall.

“Oh, I’m sure you can tell me everything I need to know.” ‘Besides which’, he thought, ‘you’re interesting.’

The smile never faltered, but Nick’s eyes flickered briefly to the computer he’d been sitting at. “Sure. Head on over, and I’ll be there in a minute. I just need to finish up here.” _’No problem at all, I wasn’t doing anything important. Nothing to see here.’_

Hair was watching Nick. It seemed that she was the source of the fancying. Well, some of it. Glasses was watching Hair with that peculiar mix of jealousy and longing the humans seemed to get so often.

There was a water cooler by the door to the meeting room, and he took several cups of water just hear the glumping sound of the displaced air bubbling to the top of the plastic tank.

“So,” Nick said as he sat down on the opposite side of the table, still all smiles, “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh! I’m the Doctor!” He put out his hand for shaking. He did love these little rituals they had.

“Doctor who?” Nick asked as he performed his part of the ritual.

“No, no. Just the Doctor.” Definitely a bit clever, this one. He pulled out the psychic paper and handed it to Nick. It should have ended all question of his identity, but Nick’s slow blink and the whirring feel of a brain moving very quickly made him feel a little nervous.

“Is this- Am I being Punked?” Nick asked, staring at the paper.

The Doctor wasn’t quite sure he what he meant. He didn’t appear to be spontaneously sprouting a Mohawk or piercings, so it probably didn’t mean what he thought it meant. “Errr?”

“The Doctor,” Nick read aloud, “Time Lord. Causality Monitoring and Maintenance.”

“I- really?” He pulled the paper from Nick’s hands and sure enough there it was, in black and white with a boxy little logo that looked like it might be based on the TARDIS. “Well aren’t you interesting, Mr Halden.”

Nick’s smile didn’t budge, but the whirring of his brain developed an anxious overtone and his eyes flicked to the telephone on the wall by the door.

“See, here’s the thing, Nick Halden. This paper,” he gestured with it. Nick’s eyes stayed on his face. So interesting! “This paper is psychic. And it will generally tell people a combination of what I want them to see and what they expect to see.”

Nick’s left eyebrow lifted up into his hairline. He didn’t believe what he was being told, but he’d wait to hear all of it. Good man.

“You _should_ have seen a business card for some sort of, I don’t know, investor or something. The sort of person who could get away with asking probing questions about your prototype drive, for example.” Oooh, that got his attention. “Instead, well.” He waved the paper again.

Nick nodded slowly. “I see. I’m a little confused about the connection between the prototype and causality. I mean, causality’s a pretty big deal.”

Beyond the glass wall of the meeting room he could see Glasses approaching Hair’s desk, his hands buried deep in pockets dragging his shoulder down into a hunch. “Look, things need to happen a certain way in order for other things to happen. And it sort of already has. So things have to stay the way they’re going to be, you see, or it’ll all go horribly wrong.”

“Change can be pretty scary,” Nick said soothingly, leaning across the desk towards him. “The way we’re progressing, it can seem like we’re bound headlong for disaster. But, you know, they used to think we’d be living on the moon by now.” Nick gave a little smile. “I think we’re actually behind schedule.”

Argh! Even the clever ones were so _stupid_ sometimes. He leapt to his feet, speeding up his body to try and slow down his mind.

“No! You’re not listening. Humanity will be flying to Mars, and soon. And from there it’ll be out to the stars. But you have to do it your own way. That drive, it’s not yours, it doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t even belong _now_.”

Nick leaned back slowly in his chair, elbows resting on the arm-rests, hands draped casually across his belly, either deliberately or instinctively adopting a non-threatening pose. “Are you saying that the prototype doesn’t belong to Tenth Vector, Doctor?”

“I know exactly where it came from, Mr Halden. And more to the point, I know where it came from before that. Come on, Nick! This is an advanced piece of technology, made from substances not even available on this planet. Tenth Vector’s engineers may be doing their damnedest to adapt it for use here, but it’s not all entirely above board, is it?”

Nick instantly denied it. No hesitation. He’d have been convinced if he couldn’t hear the slightly alarmed tenor to Nick’s thoughts. Oh yes, he’d come to the right person. He just had to give Nick a nudge in the right direction.

A discordant mix of sheepish guilt and relief clashed around Nick. He turned his head to see a man approaching the meeting room. He was barrel-chested, and carrying some extra weight, but he looked like a man who knew exactly where that extra weight was and how to use it to best effect. He was wearing an irritable expression and a very nice suit.

“Sheldon, just the man!” Nick greeted the man enthusiastically when he opened the door, “This is the-“

“John Smith, Architas Investment.” He showed Sheldon the psychic paper, then smiled wide and performed the handshake ritual again.

Sheldon’s hand was large and a bit damp, and squeezed quite hard, apparently trying to crush his metacarpals. The different ways people performed the same rituals was intriguing. “And how can we help you, Mr Smith?”

He winked at Nick, who was smiling politely while his brain turned over the solid fact of Sheldon’s acceptance of the pseudonym.

“I’m looking for a new project to add to my portfolio. My particular interest is transport technology. I’ve looked around the UK but, weeeell. The British automobile industry hasn’t done anything really _good_ in years, with the possible exception of the DB9. I’m looking to invest in something new, something _innovative_.”

Sheldon smiled, and it was just a little bit too full of teeth. “Our project is… something of a secret, Mr Smith. I’m curious as to how you heard about it.”

He smiled back, as big as he could. He wasn’t sure he could show as many teeth as Sheldon, but he’d give it a go. “Oh, you know the industry, Sheldon. Can I call you Sheldon? Nothing’s really a secret if you know how to keep your ear to the ground.”

Sheldon was still looking decidedly dubious, so he wrapped his arm around the man’s shoulder and started leading him out of the meeting room. “Why don’t you and Nick show me your brilliant new toy, and we can talk about how much of my money you’d like.”

~oOo~

With Sheldon convinced of his plans to invest huge amounts of money in the project, Nick offered to take him to lunch. Sheldon was obviously torn between schmoozing the new investor and getting back to his purloined future alien technology. Eventually he settled for telling Nick where to go for lunch, and let them go.

The restaurant was slick. Faux futuristic, with too-bright lights, beautiful but plastic-looking wait staff, and overly-elaborate food on the menu.

“OK,” Nick said from his elegantly sprawled position in the chair. How did he do that? They were ridiculously uncomfortable chairs. He sat down and tried to arrange himself to mimic Nick. “So the drive is alien technology. From the future. And we have to prevent it actually being used, or the future of humanity will be seriously messed up.”

“That’s about the size of it,” he replied, almost entirely distracted by the way the smooth, glossy, professional faces and quiet around him failed to match up to the seething morass of greed, fury, betrayal, happiness, amusement, and glee that he could feel simmering behind the masks.

He let Nick order for them both. He’d got to grips with a lot of human cuisine, and he really enjoyed a good pile of greasy fish and chips with vinegar, but he was pretty sure that they wouldn’t serve that here.

Once the food had arrived, he stuck his fork into the peculiar pile of food on his plate. He couldn’t visually identify any of the component parts.

“It’s your own fault,” Nick said, slicing into his own… something. “You kept saying ‘innovative’ to Sheldon. He loves shiny new things, but he doesn’t always pick winners.”

“Mmm,” he replied. “Tarragon and galangal. Two great tastes that do not taste great together.”

The rotter smirked slightly at his plate. “So listen, I’m really not supposed to tell you this, but the drive’s not going to make it into production. I have… information that it won’t actually be the property of Tenth Vector for much longer.”

Bok choi, cinnamon, and- was that parsnip? Interesting choice. “Well that’s a good start. What will happen to it then?”

“It gets processed and returned to the museum, who are already upgrading their security. Problem solved.” Nick smiled, clearly satisfied, and pushed something sort of orange onto his fork.

“No.” He shook his head. “Sorry, no. It’s not safe there anymore. The minute it was identified as alien technology it became dangerous. It was fine when it was hidden in plain sight, but people are interested in it now.”

“Which means?”

“That I’m taking it away. It should never have been here in the first place, and now it’s not safe for it to stay.”

“Oh, no.” Nick’s response was surprisingly vigorous for someone who seemed to be on board with not _ruining_ the future for humanity. Not to mention the rest of the galaxy. Humanity as a whole had a definite imperialist mindset. “I am not stealing it for you. No, no, no, no, no. I _like_ life outside prison.” His eyes went distant for a moment. “I like it a _lot_. And I’m really not cut out for martyrdom.”

He carefully arranged his knife and fork next to each other on his empty plate, cutting a precise radius of the plate at a hundred and thirty five degrees. “Actually, to be honest, I was just planning to take it.”

“Oh, and screw up my investigation instead. I mean, it’s an improvement over getting me sent back to prison, sure, but I’m still not loving it.

Why were people so damn difficult? “Well what would you do, then?”

He’d just meant it as a challenge, but Nick appeared to be thinking it over very seriously.

“Well, it sort of depends on whether you need to get in and out, or whether you’ve got time for something a little smoother.”

He grinned. “Time, I have. What do you have in mind?”

~oOo~

He let Nick, no _Neal_ , honestly, finish his Operation. When the drive was safely, or at least relatively so, in the hands of the FBI, he called Neal to meet him in Central Park. He liked Central Park. It was literally the heart of New York, and you could gauge the health of the city if you listened closely to the park. He stood looking up at the Empire State Building, listening to the mostly contented thrum of the city, and tried to think about Tallulah and Laszlo, and not Daleks.

When Neal appeared, he didn’t look like Nick at all. Neal was wearing a vintage suit, Devore unless he was much mistaken, and a rather nice fedora. He wondered if he could get away with a fedora. Probably not, with all the running. It was a nice thought, though.

Neal had also brought a friend. Shorter, portlier, wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt, with a cone of candyfloss in one hand, the other man looked almost child-like. But only if you couldn’t hear the whirr of his brain as he took in everything about his surroundings, and worked on some other problem at the same time. His brain made Nick’s, _Neal’s_ seem lethargic.

“This is Mozzie. He’s going to help me make the copy. Mozzie, this is the Doctor.”

They performed the handshaking ritual, and the buzz of Mozzie’s suspicion was almost deafening. “The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease,” he commented.

He covered a wince. It was just a French proverb, but it was a bit close to the knuckle. Anyway, he had a response. “But when ill indeed, even dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.”

“Victor Hugo,” Mozzie said appreciatively. “Very nice.” He took a bite of his candy floss. “So, Neal says you’ve got a job. How long are we expecting this to take? Because I have other irons in the fire, so to speak.”

Neal rolled his eyes. “I already said you don’t have to come. I can make a model of the thing myself. It’s not like it has to work. In fact, the whole point is that it’s not _supposed_ to work.”

“Oh, it’ll take no time at all. More or less. Look, come on and I’ll show you,” he said, turning away to head back toward the quiet leafy corner where he’d left the TARDIS. She was totally out of place in Central Park, his blue box from a bygone era in a far-off land. Well, far-off by Earth standards, anyway, the distance measurable in miles or kilometres, not years- But that wasn’t the point. The point was that she looked oddly at home amongst the sun-dappled grass and gently swaying leaves. There was a butterfly sunning itself on her door. He wondered if they were having an interesting conversation.

He checked over his shoulder to make sure that Neal and Mozzie were still there. They were walking about 15 yards behind him, bickering quietly.

“Here we are!” he announced. They stopped, startled, and looked around.

“And what, exactly,” Mozzie asked, “Is the significance of _here_? Because I am seeing some kind of old school phone booth in Central Park, and I am definitely going to need more room than a phone booth is going to provide.”

He grinned and unlocked the door. He really loved this part. “Oh, space isn’t going to be a problem,” he said and ushered them in.

Mozzie froze just inside the door. “So not only are you pulling a con on the Suit - and while I would normally gleefully encourage hoodwinking The Man, conning the Suit has never worked out very well for you - you’re conning him for an _alien_?” He spun around, eyes wide and accusing. “Oh my god! You’re an alien! This is an alien abduction!”

Neal touched Mozzie’s shoulder reassuringly. “Mozzie, he’s not an alien. Come on, look at him.”

“Oh no,” he said. “I am. Gallifreyan, in fact.” Neal looked sceptical. Mozzie looked vindicated.

Neal crossed his arms and sent one eyebrow up into his hairline. “You look pretty human to me.”

He sighed. Humans were always so human-centric. Most of the time he found their self-centredness charming, but it did wear a bit. “Actually, humans look quite Gallifreyan. But you’ve only got one heart.”

Neal looked like he was about to object, but Mozzie over-rode him. “So this is an alien spaceship. That’s why it’s bigger on the inside.”

“Wait,” Neal said, worried. “We can’t go anywhere. You know that, right? I get more than 2 miles from the Empire State, this thing,” he raised his left leg and pulled the trouser leg up to reveal a large black plastic band resting just above his ankle, “sends out alarms to the US Marshalls, who call Peter, who dumps my ass. Uh, back in prison. Dumps my ass back in prison.”

“Let me see that,” he demanded. A quick pass with the sonic screwdriver showed it to be nothing that couldn’t be dealt with in a flash. “No problem, I can bypass the alarm and have it off you in a jiff!”

Temptation bloomed in Neal’s eyes. “Really?”

“Just like that!” He clicked his fingers. “So here’s the plan. We take your ankle jewellery off, and off we go. The two of you produce a replica of the Sisthian drive, and maybe take a wee jaunt or two, because how often do you have all of time and space at your disposal, eh?” He grinned, imagining some of the things he could show these two. “Then we bring you back about, oooh, say ten minutes from now? Then you work your magic swapping it out for the real thing in the museum, which I then take away, thereby preserving the future of the human race, and you are back to your normal lives before your irons go cold or your Peter misses you. What do you say?” He threw his arms wide and waited for their enthusiastic agreement.

Mozzie looked at Neal, who looked absolutely torn. “Oh, come _on_! All of time and space, Neal. Greek bronzes! Donatello’s _Joshua_. _The Just Judges_ , Neal! All we’d have to do is follow Goedertier. Not to mention coin stashes.” His eyes went distant for a moment. “Neal,” Mozzie breathed, reverently, “Florence. We could see Da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari. Botticelli’s classical mythology pieces that he burned in-“

“The Bonfire of the Vanities,” Neal echoed. “We could see D ürer at work. Bellini. _Michelangelo_.”

“He taught me how to sculpt, you know,” he threw out there, though he knew they weren’t really listening.

“Turner,” said Mozzie. “I know, I know, but he was the undisputed master of the landscape. And there’s always Da Vinci.” They stared at each other for a moment, rapt.

Into the almost pious silence a strident voice bellowed through the open TARDIS door.

“Neal! Where the hell are you?”

“Well that’s inconvenient,” Moz observed.

The grumbling voice came closer. “There’s a blue phone booth in Central Park. Where else would he be? Neal!”

“I’d better get out there before he-”

A tall, broad figure stood silhouetted in the door of the TARDIS. Which was interesting, since he shouldn’t really have been able to see it at all.

“What the hell?” the tall man demanded. Neal’s brain was loudly, and probably not deliberately, broadcasting _PeterPeterPeterPeterPeter_. He stared for a moment around the interior of the TARDIS, then looked back out behind him. He turned inside again, this time looking directly at Neal. “No, really. What the _hell_?”

Neal stepped forward, smiling reassuringly, which only seemed to make Peter more dubious. “Don’t show him the paper,” Neal murmured quietly as he walked past him. “Hey, Peter. What’s up?”

Peter folded his arms, sending his shoulders from broad right up to imposing. “What’s up? What’s _up_ is that your anklet is flickering on and off in a way that is making the Marshalls seriously twitchy. The only reason there isn’t a team on its way right now is because I was nearby and I assured them it was probably an equipment failure, and _of course_ you wouldn’t dream of doing anything that might jeopardise the terms of your release.” His eyes were flicking a little nervously around the arches and hanging wires, to Mozzie, to Neal, to the central console, to him, and around again.

“Oh,” he said, “Sorry.” Neal and Peter both turned to look at him. “The energy fields must be messing with the transmission. Sorry about that!”

“And who, exactly are you?” Peter had a quite a ferocious scowl. He was impressed.

“I’m the Doctor. Pleasure to meet you!”

Neal stepped up next to Peter and put his hand on Peter’s forearm. It wasn’t an especially intimate gesture among humans, although it was a different matter among the Erlitzk, but there was something about the way they stood that made it _seem_ intimate.

“The Doctor’s a friend of Mozzie’s,” Neal lied. “They were just catching up. Doctor, this is Special Agent Peter Burke.” His brain was broadcasting _’Nothing underhand happening here, all entirely above-board’_.

Wait. _The_ Peter Burke? “Sorry, you’re Peter _Burke_? _Special Agent_ Peter Burke?”

Peter nodded warily. Peter Burke!

He leapt forward to do the handshaking ritual with much vigour. Peter allowed his hand to be shaken, although his brain was churning with suspicion. Which was probably fair enough, since he wouldn’t know yet _why_ he was so keen to shake the man’s hand.

Peter cleared his throat. “Well. I hate to interrupt your reunion, but if your…” he paused, looking around the control room, “equipment is interfering with Neal’s tracker, we’d better get him out of here before the Marshalls decide to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt. And you should move your… box before someone impounds it. Neal?”

Neal appeared to be having a silent conversation with Mozzie, consisting entirely of tiny head jerks, hand twitches and facial tics. Whatever the outcome, Mozzie wasn’t pleased.

Neal smiled and shrugged. “Hey, we should see if El’s free for lunch.” He put his hand to the small of Peter’s back, guiding him back out into the park. “Let me know when you’re done, Moz. Oh, and give my regards to Leonardo,” he called back over his shoulder.

“Oh God,” Peter grumbled. “I’m going to have to warn every Da Vinci exhibit in the country to put extra security on, aren’t I?”

“Come on, Peter,” he heard Neal say as they walked outside, “Da Vinci is not the only ‘Leonardo’ in the world. There’s Leonardo DiCaprio, obviously. The coach of Internazionale Milano, Fibonacci the mathematician, Bonucci the Italian footballer - he’s really promising…”

Their voices faded into the general rush of humanity outside the TARDIS doors.

He turned to face Mozzie. “That was Peter Burke.”

Mozzie didn’t seem very impressed. “I am vividly aware,” he said sourly.

There was no pleasing some people. Never mind. He would bet that parking in the middle of the Horsehead Nebula for a bit would sort that out.

“Well, then!” He closed the door and bounced up the steps to the console, where Mozzie was starting to look less grouchy and more nervous. “I don’t think the TARDIS would like being impounded. We’d better head off.” He flipped the hydrocoptic marzelvanes, wound the differential girdlespring as tight as it would go, turned the thermal ambifacient vaneshaft on, and released the brakes. “Have you eaten?” he asked. “We could get lunch before you get started on the replica drive. I know this great little place on Fomalhaut.”

Mozzie watched the time column pump away, rising and falling, pushing and pulling at the eerie green light of time itself. “I can’t eat eggs,” he said absently.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ships_Harry.
> 
> For reasons I won’t go into, the Doctor learns from Michaelangelo how to sculpt in the audiobook ‘The Stone Rose’. _It is totally canon._
> 
> ETA: Ten is excited to meet Peter, because Peter is going to be Very Important one day. But I can't tell you why. Spoilers, you know.


End file.
